Strength
by DanikaJA
Summary: Theoden comforts Eowyn after the death of her mother. ONESHOT.
_Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?  
Where is the hand on the harp-string, and the red fire glowing?  
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?  
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;  
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.  
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning?  
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?_

The world had slipped into twilight—that queer middle plane between daylight and darkness that renders both eyesight and torchlight utterly useless. Straining his own eyes, Theoden gave his steady and surefooted mare a slack rein, and the faithful creature picked her way through the rocky hills with the patience of a mule. He rubbed his hands together briskly before cupping them to his mouth once more to call out; the air was growing cooler as dusk fell.

"Eowyn!"

His shout was swallowed up in the descending darkness. He did not trouble to stop the mare while he fished flint, tinder and a torch out of a saddlebag. In the distance, he could hear other men calling, could see other torches being lit. They had been searching for hours. No one knew when or where the child had gone; the wan wisp of a girl had been disconsolate and solitary since the death of her mother—rest her soul—and so no one had missed her until evening. Theodwyn had been a tender-hearted soul, Theoden reflected, and she would have been hysterical over the child's long absence. Cursing suddenly, he put his thumb in his mouth; he had cut it on the sharp flint. His sparks weren't catching on the pine-tar. He cupped his hand around the head of the torch and blew gently to coax it to life and flame.

The mare stopped and gave a soft nicker. Theoden turned towards the sound of a friendly answering whinny and raised the torch. A plump gray pony was meandering across the next hillock, nibbling its way between clusters of bitter simbelmyne in search of tender grass. Theoden gave a sigh of relief at the sight of his niece sitting in the grass, her skirts hiked up above her knees, plucking the petals from a fistful of snowy flowers and crushing them into the earth at her feet.

"Eowyn, child," he called more softly as he dismounted, not wanting to startle her.

"Go away! I don't want boys," was the surly response; she did not look up.

"I'm not a boy; I'm your uncle, and the King."

"Oh!"

She swiped her arm across her face and clambered to her feet to give a clumsy curtsy accompanied by a hiccough.

"I'm sorry, Uncle."

Theoden took her by the shoulders and felt her shiver. He turned up her chin with two fingers; her grey eyes were still glistening, and her tear-stained cheeks were two spots of rosy color from the cold.

"As you should be," he muttered sternly, shrugging out of his own cloak and wrapping it around her. "What on earth are you doing out here among the tombs?"

"I came to talk to mother."

Theoden found his throat suddenly, uncomfortably tight, as though a stone was lodged there. He had not even realized that he had been riding among the tombs, never mind across his own sister's grave. He gave himself a little shake and took the flaxen-haired maiden by the hand, plucking the torch up out of the earth where he had planted it and leading the way through the grass back to his mare. He slowed his long, sure strides to match her short stumbling ones; she tread constantly upon the hem of the cloak and was ever in danger of falling.

When she was safely nestled before him in the saddle and her pony ambling happily behind the mare, he gathered his composure.

"I was worried you were lost. Your mother would be very cross if she knew."

"I know," she answered unhappily. "I just miss her."

"Aye. I miss her as well. She was a good woman."

"She always listened to me, when Eomer and Theodred were teasing. Theodred is mean, and Eomer does whatever he says," here she paused and looked up at him fearfully, seeming to realize that her description of her cousin might offend the King.

Theoden couldn't help but chuckle; Theodred was a big lad, and a natural-born leader; he used both to his advantage. The boys were as thick as thieves, and Theoden had been glad—it had eased the pain of their parents' passing for his young nephew. But not, it seemed, for his dear niece, who missed her mother's kindness and soothing words.

"Theodred is mean," he agreed, trying to imagine what Theodwyn might say in his place. "I'll have to have a word with him."

"No, don't!" Eowyn cried, squirming in the saddle. "Please don't. Theodred thinks that girls are silly. I wish I was a boy; then I'd show him!"

Theodred would change his mind about girls soon enough, Theoden thought amusedly, but kept the thought to himself.

"What would you show him, if you were a boy?" He asked instead.

"That I'm not silly; that I'm strong, and I can fight! I'd knock him off his horse and hit him with a sword!"

He could feel the tense excitement that filled her slim young body at the thought of battle and chuckled again. She put him in mind of Eomund; her father had been a brilliant young warrior and a dear friend. His light had been extinguished far too soon.

"I'm sure you would," he said aloud, to distract himself from somber thoughts. "You'd make a fine shieldmaiden."

"Shieldmaiden?" Her inquiring tone indicated that the term was unfamiliar.

"Men are not the only ones who go to war; war touches us all. Who do you think defends our homes while the men and boys go out to fight? The grandfathers? No. The women of Rohan learned long ago that those without swords could still die upon them; so they took up shields and swords of their own, teaching themselves war-craft as well as weaving," he explained.

"Could mother fight?" Eowyn chirped curiously.

"To my knowledge, your mother never touched a sword," Theoden answered honestly, though when he felt her little shoulders slump, he thought it might have been kinder to lie.

"Was she not strong enough?"

Theoden thought of his sister's slender back, bent over the pallets of the injured and dying as she offered a kind word, a sip of cool water, a fresh bandage, a hand to hold, after each battle. He thought of her warm embrace, his anchor to the world when his own dear Elfhild had succumbed to childbed fever. He thought of her freely streaming tears as she sang the lament for her love when he was laid beneath these hills.

His sister had enough strength to move mountains.

His own tears slid down his cheeks, unbidden and—at last—unchecked.

"There are different kinds of strength, child," he whispered, kissing the top of her head. "It's more than just swinging swords."

"Oh."

A heartbeat.

"Can I still learn to use one?"

"Soon enough, dear one. Soon enough."


End file.
